Emmanuel Macron's first visit beyond Europe as French head of state was to Morocco, where anti-corruption protests have caused unprecedented unrest over the past seven months. The visit brought succour to the embattled kingdom but was also a little unsettling for Rabat, which has yet to fully understand the new Macron administration. But it was essentially a trip to signal continuity in Franco-Moroccan relations. Lénaïg Bredoux reports.

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is threatening to leave Spain if its justice system proves too troublesome for him over his tax affairs. The Real Madrid star, who faces an investigation into alleged tax evasion, insists that he has acted in good faith and says that all his fiscal arrangements were authorised. To back this claim, he and his advisors point to the fact that the authorities in England had no problem with his fiscal set-up when he played for Manchester United. But according to new documents from the whistle-blowing platform Football Leaks, and revealed here by Mediapart, there are now question marks over this line of defence. Michaël Hajdenberg and Yann Philippin report.

The hard and far right narrative came undone in France's Parliamentary elections.

The fact that a party that did not even exist just over a year ago has just won an absolute majority in the French National Assembly has inevitably excited surprise among commentators. But, argues Hubert Huertas, one remarkable aspect of the recent presidential and legislative votes has largely gone unnoticed: the death of the notion that French society was on some inevitable path towards the far right. This theory, which was enthusiastically adopted by Nicolas Sarkozy and exemplified by the Front National, has been comprehensively demolished, he says.

France went back to the polls on Sunday to choose the 577 members of parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, in the final, decisive second round of legislative elections. The newly-elected centrist President Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling party La République En Marche (LREM) won a majority of seats (351 with its centre-right allies), but well below what was forecast after its score in the first round. The second-placed conservatives did a little better than expected, while the Socialist Party, with 29 seats, has suffered a humiliating defeat, although it has fared better than the radical-left. The far-right has won eight seats. Importantly, turnout was a record low. Follow the results, reactions and analysis as it happened on the night. Reporting by Graham Tearse and Michael Streeter.

Former French prime minister François Fillon’s presidential election campaign nosedived after it was alleged that over several years he fraudulently employed his British-born wife Penelope as his parliamentary assistant for which she earned almost 700,000 euros paid out of public funds. While both Fillon, who was until then the lead candidate in the election, and his wife deny the fake job accusations they are currently placed under investigation in an ongoing judicial probe. The couple insist that if there is little evidence of Penelope Fillon’s presence in parliament it is because she was active in her husband’s constituency. Mediapart has carried out a detailed search through local newspaper archives to find trace of her work, and the result offers little support for their claim. Mathilde Mathieu and Antton Rouget report.

The French Socialist Party emerged from last Sunday’s legislative election first round in tatters, dwarfed not only by the massive surge of president Emmanuel Macron’s new centrist party, but also the conservatives, the far-right and, importantly, the radical-left. The results followed its disastrous score in the presidential elections, and it is forecast to be put to the sword in the final round this coming weekend. The party’s debacle is more than a simple election defeat; it signals the end of the road for it as a party of government, argues Fabien Escalona, a specialist in European social democrat movements. In this analysis, he argues that the rare previous examples of parties of Western democracies that have similarly collapsed offer little hope it will ever recover.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s newly founded centrist party La République En Marche (LREM) is forecast to gain as many as 455 out of parliament’s 577 seats in next Sunday’s second and final round of legislative elections. It emerged from the first round this weekend with massive support across the country, to the backdrop of a record low turnout of less than one in two voters. Macron now appears certain to wield a crushing power to enact his promised major structural reforms, and to be completely untied to his electoral alliance with the centre-right MoDem party. Mathieu Magnaudeix and Ellen Salvi report.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling République En Marche (France on the move) party has convincingly won a majority of votes cast in Sunday’s first round of voting to elect a new parliament. With candidates in many constituencies now facing a second-round playoff next weekend, Macron’s REM party is predicted to win up to 455 seats out of parliament’s total of 577, amid a record low turnout of just one-in-two voters. Estimations place the conservative Les Républicains party far behind in second place, while the radical-left appears to have beaten the score of the Socialist Party which has suffered a humiliating trouncing by the REM in many constituencies. The far-right has failed to match its share of the presidential election vote, with estimates that it will win possibly as few as three seats. Follow here how the events developed through the night, with results and reactions as they came in. Reporting by Graham Tearse and Michael Streeter.

This Sunday’s first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections is predicted to see newly-elected centrist president Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling party emerge with a resounding lead. But also forecast is a poor, and possibly record-low, turnout. Mediapart political commentator Hubert Huertas argues here that, as usual, the abstention rate will be largely ignored by those who win, and used by those who lose to hide the true significance of their defeat, while in fact it delivers a powerful political message to all parties.

Migrant rights groups are taking legal action after discovering that migrants are being secretly detained overnight in prefabricated huts in the French town of Menton on the border with Italy. The groups say the the French authorities' treatment of the refugees, many of whom are from Sudan and Eritrea and who include some children, is illegal. Carine Fouteau reports.

Three major French firms, carmakers Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën plus retailer Auchan, have set up insurance companies in Malta to save themselves from paying tens of millions of euros in taxes in France. The revelation comes from Malta Files, a four-month investigation by Mediapart and its partners in the European Investigative Collaborations journalistic collective (EIC) into one of Europe's lesser-known tax havens. Although what the three firms are doing is legal, the two car firms are successfully avoiding paying tax to the French state even though it is a major shareholder in each of them. Yann Philippin reports.

The head of France's cyber security agency says that the hack behind the massive leak of emails from Emmanuel Macron's campaign team on the eve of his election as president on May 7th was of such “simplicity” that it could have been carried out by “anyone”. It is therefore impossible, says Guillaume Poupard, to say whether Russian hacking groups with ties to the government in Moscow were implicated. However, as Agathe Duparc and Anastasia Kirilenko report, investigations by two independent websites in Moscow do indeed point to Russian involvement.

Through the havoc it wreaked on the established political system, the recent French presidential election showed the hunger that exists for democratic renewal. But if the Parliamentary elections later this month give Emmanuel Macron's government an absolute majority it would be a retrograde step to presidential supremacy and a compliant Parliament, argues Mediapart’s publishing editor and co-founder Edwy Plenel. That is why, he says, we need a pluralist National Assembly encompassing a diverse, democratic, social and environmental opposition.

Russia, Armenia and the former West Germany were all major suppliers of technology and raw materials for Syria's programme of chemical weapon production, exiled Syrians who worked on the project have told Mediapart. They also say that, in violation of intentional law, the Damascus regime still has a secret arsenal of up to 35 tonnes of chemical weapons. René Backmann reports.

Sarin production site at Al Dumayr in Syria which was partially destroyed by the United Nations.

Exiled Syrian scientists have told Mediapart that the Damascus regime drew up plans to use chemical weapons against internal opposition two years before the start of the current civil war in 2011. The scientists, who were involved in the making of the weapons but who defected after misgivings about its use inside the country, say the country's president Bashar al-Assad had become unnerved by protests in Iran in 2009 and the regime had ordered seven military basses to be made ready to store chemical weapons – including sarin gas. René Backmann reports.

The first results in a US-wide effort to better measure the levels of contaminants released through the burning of munitions and their waste show elevated levels of lead, arsenic and other toxins. Abrahm Lustgarten of US investigative website ProPublica reports.

Since its inception, three years ago, Festival Ciné-Palestine (FCP) has lived up to its ambition of being a hub for promoting and disseminating Palestinian cinema in its richness and diversity. Breaking down barriers, FCP has turned itself into a true rallying point for an increasing number of artists, allowing Palestinian artists from all around the world to meet in Paris.FCP2017

Jonathan Buchsbaum has published "Exception Taken: How France Has Defied Hollywood's New World Order", a book on the French cultural exception which shows that one can resist the steam-roller of the American industry. It is particularly timely when the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Pact is still a threat.

Donald Trump’s supporters crowed when leaked pages of his 2005 return showed he paid a hefty amount of taxes. But the returns for the following years, which remain secret, likely include some hefty refunds of that payment, reports US website ProPublica in this investigation co-published with The Washington Post.

In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.

Texas is scheduled to release Genene Jones, a former nurse and suspected serial killer of children, early next year. Now, prosecutors in San Antonio have moved to prevent her release, bringing a new murder charge against Jones in connection with the death of a child 35 years ago. US investigative website ProPublica reports on the chilling and disturbing tale of the woman dubbed 'the Angel of Death'.

Cloudflare, a prominent San Francisco outfit, provides services to neo-Nazi sites like The Daily Stormer, including giving them personal information on people who complain about their content, reveals US investigative website ProPublica.

Amnesty International France and Human Rights Watch have launched a call for the defence and protection of human rights and freedoms which are currently under attack in France, but also around the world, from political propositions based on fear, intolerance, and stigmatization.

A US government investigation found that Jim Renne, appointed to the Trump “landing team” at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now hired in a senior role at the Department of Agriculture, was a key player in a scandal in which staff were targeted on the basis of sexual orientation, details US investigative website, ProPublica.

My name is Lya and I’m a 21 year-old student from French Guiana (currently living in Toulouse, France). You’re probably not aware of the current situation in French Guiana and you might not care at all but whatever. It needs to be said.

Mediapart was launched on March 16th 2008, and on the occasion of each yearly anniversary it makes public all the details of its finances, in the form of a press conference and a presentation to its readers. In 2016, the total number of subscribers to your online journal exceeded 130,000, when its turnover rose by almost 10% and net earnings represented more than 16% of turnover, while the number of permanent staff climbed to 74.

A new group of so called "border-hunters" have taken their oaths this week. Meanwhile several articles in the international media have recently dealt with a complaint confirmed by several human rights organisations about the Hungarian border-guards and police resorting to violence when dealing with refugees at the border.

Writing in Le Monde just before Christmas, French constitutional law expert, Didier Maus, explained the controversial ruling of the country’s top administrative court permitting the installation of Christian nativity scenes on the premises of ‘secular’ public institutions.

In this blog on the theme of French secularism, or laïcité, a group of Lille University masters students present a range of reports from the French media about issues related to the Republic's separation of religion from the state. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and notes, provide an insight into how the French press is treating this controversial subject.

Hungarian opposition party (Együtt) organised a "whistle concert" to express their dislike of Orban's government's close friendship (comradery, really) with the Russian president. A demonstration was organised but the police fenced off nearly half of the downtown 5th district where the Houses of Parliament and many government buildings are located. Photos to follow this evening.

The top science panel in the United States has just sketched a clearer way to set a fair price today for cutting tomorrow’s climate risks. But as Andrew Revkin of US investigative website ProPublica says, some of Donald Trump’s advisers say the price should be zero.

As Julia Angwin, Terry Parris Jr. and Surya Mattu report for US investigative website ProPublica, the social media site shows users how it categorizes them. But Facebook doesn’t reveal the data it is buying about their offline lives.

US investigative website ProPublica talks to Chip Berlet, who has spent the past four decades studying right-wing political movements as a writer, activist and scholar, about the forces behind President-elect Donald Trump’s ascendance.

Veteran US civil rights activist, feminist, academic and writer Angela Davis, a prominent communist militant in the 1960s associated with the Black Panther movement, talks here to Mediapart about the election of Donald Trump, the presidency of Barack Obama, and why she believes France’s secular principles have become “a weapon against Muslims”.

Journalist Masha Gessen, who has spent years reporting on Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia, talks to US investigative website ProPublica about how her colleagues in the industry should be covering President-elect Donald Trump.

Wow! What a powerful film 'I Daniel Blake' is. Sitting in the cinema and climbing into Daniel’s world for 100 minutes is painful. Somehow Ken Loach is able to transport you into the shoes of principal characters Daniel and Katie and as a result, with each passing scene your anger and empathy rise to great heights. It’s exhausting!

Donald Trump’s victory marks the end of an era when a self-confident Establishment preached the end of history, the end of passion and the supremacy of a technocracy working on behalf of the 1%, writes former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. But the era it ushers in, he argues, is not new but a variant of the 1930s, featuring deflationary economics, xenophobia and divide-and-rule politics.

“In black America, the Obama presidency and the backlash it provoked have rekindled a spirit of resistance not seen since the era of Black Power, both in politics, with the rise of Black Lives Matter, and in culture,” writes Adam Shatz, a New York-based contributing editor of the London Review of Books and a scholar in residence at the New York Institute for the Humanities.

American officials say the investigation of the assaults on Paris and Brussels has led them to a shadowy Moroccan militant who was raised in Southern France and now lives in Syria. Sebastian Rotella reports for US investigative website ProPublica.

Passport control in US airports used to be a no man’s land politically. No longer so. I recently noticed small changes put into place, changes I wouldn’t have picked up on had Fox News not been staring me right in the face.

The recent series of terror attacks in France and Belgium lay bare an array of security shortcomings, most of which remain unaddressed. In a forthcoming documentary, investigative news site ProPublica and investigative TV documentary makers Frontline examine what went wrong and why it is so hard for Europe to protect itself from the growing threat.

British volunteer Lena Anayi has spent time teaching French to migrants at the so-called 'Jungle' in Calais. Here she recounts her experiences and explains why she wants the plight of the migrants to stay high on the news agenda.

Several mayors of French seaside towns have slapped a ban on the wearing of burkinis, the Islamic full-body swimsuit, on local beaches, citing a supposed threat to public order and even hygiene. Mediapart editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel argues here that the ban is an outrageous stigmatisation of French Muslims in a society that is losing sight of the fundamental rights of citizens.

If elected president, Donald Trump has promised to “open up” libel laws so he can sue news organizations like they’ve “never got sued before.” While the First Amendment is still intact, US investigative website ProPublica compiled a list of some articles he might have his eye on.

Clinton has been in the public eye for four decades - and there have been investigative stories about her for nearly as long. US investigative website ProPublica presents a chronological guide to them.

After Britain voted for Brexit European political leaders have been saying that they regret but respect the decision. I don't. That is, I accept the democratic verdict of the British people, of whom I am part, but I don't find anything to respect in there. Particularly as people like me were excluded from voting.

The UK really is divided in two for this landmark vote and it looks as though the outcome will be a nail biting finish as it is ridiculously too close to call. Around 3 weeks ago I’d have said that the vote lay slightly in favour of staying with the EU but now it appears that slightly more people want Brexit...

Nowadays we believe that democracy is one person, one vote. But does nationality or place of residence confer the right to vote? Britain has got those criteria all mixed up in its referendum on membership of the European Union. Up to two million Britons living abroad are disenfranchised, but some non-Brits living in the UK are able to vote. It doesn't make sense.

Published in French in 2014, my book about islamophobia in France is now avalaible in English, at Verso Books. Added to this English edition is a previously unpublished foreword and articles written after the Paris attacks of 2015.

Mediapart English, the English-language section of Mediapart, invites your blog contributions about whatever topic stirs you, concerning France or elsewhere in the world, which can be published here on our homepage Club column in a spirit of debate and exchange.

Lena Groeger of US investigative website ProPublica asks: What answers can we find by looking at data that appears in the real world as a byproduct of what has been “used up” or “worn down”? What can we tell from what’s left over?

Ginger Thompson of US investigative website ProPublica writes: On the eve of the release of a report investigating a student massacre in 2014, its authors and other human rights advocates feared an attempt to pre-empt the findings and discredit the work.

Eric Umansky of US investigative website ProPublica writes: As the Panama Papers continue to embarrass leaders across continents, one thought has kept occurring to me: how the hell did the organizers pull it off? How did they make sense of so many documents? And, most importantly, how did they stay sane during it all? So I spoke with Marina Walker Guevara, who helped shepherd the project.

Mediapart was launched eight years ago, on March 16th 2008. Here we present a few facts and figures about our development, beginning with an introduction from editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel on the construction of Mediapart’s independence.

Editor of technological news website Next INpact, Marc Rees, reports that France has requested a derogation from the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Having already temporarily opted out of the European Convention on Human Rights, Rees shows that the French state is therefore currently contravening all of the international human rights agreements it has helped to draft.

The morning after the State of Emergency was imposed, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve outlined its key aspects. This article from the website of national radio station France Info was one of the first to reveal details of the new security measures.

In this blog on the theme of the French State of Emergency, a group of Lille University masters students present a range of reports from the French media about the security measures introduced in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and notes, provide an insight into how the French press is treating this controversial subject.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who last September stepped down from his post in the radical-left Syriza government, has launched his Democracy in Europe movement, DiEM25. Its ambitious aim is a radical overhaul of Europe’s institutions and the introduction of absolute transparency in decision-making, to be completed by 2025. Mediapart publishes here the manifesto Varoufakis presented in Berlin on February 9th, a plan to “regain control over our Europe from unaccountable ‘technocrats’ and shadowy institutions”.

Some people make dieting resolutions in the New Year. I make security and privacy resolutions, because those are the things that keep me up at night, writes ProPublica reporter Julia Angwin in this account of how she upped her defences against hackers and spies.

Gail McGovern, a former AT&T executive who had taught marketing at Harvard Business School, was hired as CEO of the American Red Cross in 2008 to revitalize the charity. Seven years on, it has cut hundreds of chapters and shed thousands of employees, reports US investigative website ProPublica.

Last Friday, a solemn tribute was given to the 130 victims of the Paris attacks. French flags outside of windows and tweet #ProudofFrance. A national unity cleverly orchestrated from which it was difficult to escape without feeling vaguely guilty. But martial ripost instead of a global response and COP 21 hypocrisy - this is the system that needs to change.

After the Paris attacks of November 13th, a battle cry similar to that of Charlie Hebdo's pen has been relayed on internet quite widely. This letter is a proposition to go beyond the mere symbol and to question ourselves on our society.

At Wembley Stadium, on Tuesday, 71,000 fans gathered to watch a France-England friendly and pay homage to the victims of last week’s attacks in Paris. The audience put on a brave face, chanting and jumping and waving their flags, but just four days on from an act of terror that claimed 130 lives, there was little joy to be had.

I was caught in a kind of crossfire after the Friday attacks in Paris: soothed by all the messages of compassion, solidarity and love for Paris, and disturbed by those who understood these messages as indicative of a partial attitude towards tragedies that unfold around the world.

Three weeks ahead of the opening of COP21, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius hosts a Pre-COP meeting in Paris between November 8-10, a penultimate gathering of ministers from around one hundred countries. A meeting with civil society organisations was held on Sunday morning. Here is the statement delivered on behalf of Attac France, as a member of the international coalition Climate Justice Now.

Clive Hamilton, Australian thinker and economist, is Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, a member of the Australian government's Climate Change Authority and the author of "Requiem for a species" and "Earthmasters: Playing God with the climate". Three weeks before the opening of the COP 21 climate conference in Paris, he raises here two major questions: "What will be the magnitude of the global carbon budget?" and "What is the proportion of total carbon budget allocated to each nation?"

For the Palestinian students demonstrating at the Beth El checkpoint at the entrance to Ramallah, the English writer John Berger proposes renaming Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5, The Intifada. « They too are inspired by a vision of happiness they cannot know in their lives. I send the Concerto as an arm to be used in their struggle against the Israelis who occupy and colonize their homeland. »

In the United States, debt collection lawsuits are far more common among black communities than white ones reveals this report by investigative website ProPublica in a first-of-its-kind analysis of the issue.

Yanis Varoufakis was a guest on Friday's special live and open access broadcast from Mediapart. The broadcast came five days after Greece's Parliamentary elections and Alexis Tsipras's former finance minister gave his verdict and observations on the outcome. Yanis Varoufakis also set out his vision of Europe and the profound reforms that need to be carried out in the eurozone to ensure that the single currency is no longer the instrument of a generalised policy of austerity in Europe. Listen to the broadcast (Varoufakis spoke in English with simultaneous French translation).

Why we are convening an international summit on a plan B for Europe, open to willing citizens, organisations and intellectuals, by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Member of the European Parliament, co-founder of the Parti de Gauche (France), Stefano Fassina, Member of the Italian Parliament, former Italian deputy minister of economy and finance (Italy), Zoe Konstantopoulou, President of the Hellenic parliament (Greece), Oskar Lafontaine, former German minister of finance, founder of Die Linke (Germany) and Yanis Varoufakis, Member of the Greek Parliament, former Greek minister of finance (Greece).

This morning it seems from media reports that the Hungarian police has given up trying to register the crowds of refugees coming through the broder with Serbia: "Have something to eat and drink, then go where you like " is what migrants arriving in Hungary are told now.

This blog is both a cry of outrage and a plea: this is not the first time Europe has seen a tide of refugees, so let’s take the lessons from our recent past and stop greeting the terrible tragedy of today’s refugees with political and bureaucratic injustice.

More than 1.8 million Syrian refugees are now living in Turkey. Despite a long tradition of welcoming refugees, the infrastructure put in place at the start of the Syrian civil war can no longer cope with such a high number of refugees. Here, three Syrian families who settled in Istanbul recount their experiences, the precariousness of their situations, and their plans to reach Europe.

A hundred well-known figures have launched an appeal for a climate uprising, in the spirit of the social movements that put an end to the crimes of slavery, totalitarianism, colonialism and apartheid. Fossil fuels must be left in the ground, they should no longer be extracted and they should no longer be subsidised, say campaigners.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was the guest speaker at the yearly socialist ‘fête de la Rose’ gathering in Frangy-en-Bresse in Burgundy on August 23rd, invited by former French economy minister and anti-austerity campaigner Arnaud Montebourg. This is the text in full of Varoufakis’ revealing and insightful speech.

New data on payments from drug and device companies to US doctors show that many of the latter received payments on 100 or more days last year. Some even received payments on more days than they didn’t, reports US investigative website ProPublica, in a series of investigations tracking the financial ties between doctors and medical companies.

Get involved, tell us your stories, pass on the news! Mediapart this year launched operation #OpenEurope in partnership with seven European and Tunisia media outlets plus a number of associations, collectives and NGOs. The aim: to make people more aware of the migrant tragedy and pass on details of how people all over Europe are doing something about it. For that, your participation is vital.

While Turkey gets ready for a crucial general election on June 7th, more than 40% of voters say they would not trust the results and are afraid of major electoral fraud. In this context, the recent vote by the Turkish parliament on 'internal security' legislation is not reassuring. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan allows for the legalisation of certain human rights violations. Here academic Ibrahim Kaboğlu, a prominent figure in Turkish society, reacts against this security policy that started in the wake of the Gezi Park demonstrations.

Inspired by a talk I had with two statisticians in the National Statistical Institute of Portugal, and against the background of the repeated critique by the US Department of the Treasury Office of International Affairs on German economic policy, I analysed the foreign trade between Germany and Portugal. The result clearly supports the argument of the US Treasury – and shows what European politics lacks most, writes Thorsten Hild, editor of the German online journal Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft – Analyse & Meinung.

A little-remembered incident helped establish the notion that news organizations could and should preserve their independence from advertisers, reports US investigative website ProPublica. As Wall Street Journal publisher Barney Kilgore told Time magazine: "For years almost everything in Detroit has been 'off the record.' We just decided not to play it that way. It isn't journalism."

The Kurdish capital of Turkey, which has two millions inhabitants, faces a perilous time but is also full of hope. Since the start of the 20th century, the Kurds have been split between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, but today this population without a state is at the heart of the reconstruction of the Middle East.

Whether the death of crusading Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman is found to be a suicide or homicide, many Argentines probably won’t believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the sinister explanation.

After the army, the judges, the police and the Turkish press, the conservative Turkish government keeps on finding new internal enemies. It is now the turn of international journalists to be the target of this government through attacks via the news or social media and even legal action.

We the undersigned call on the governments of Europe, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF to respect the decision of the Greek people to choose a new course and to engage the new government of Greece in good faith negotiations to resolve the Greek debt.

The New York Police Department has a secretive programme that uses unmarked vans with X-ray machines designed to detect bombs. US investigative website ProPublica tried to find out more about it, but the NYPD refused to answer for three years. Now a state judge has ordered the New York City Police Department to release records on the programme.

In this blog project on the theme of French responses to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, a group of Lille University masters degree students in English-French translation present a wide range of reports published in the French media in the aftermath of January’s shocking events. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and information notes, provide an insight into the personalities, groups and issues influencing debate and how these topics are reported in France.

Those who attacked France last week forgot that this is the country of resistance. On Sunday 11th January, 2015, a sea of people – no, an ocean – demonstrated against the killers of Charlie Hebdo, the assassins of ordinary police officers and the gunning down of Jews. It was a staggering sight to see, and was followed around the world.

Dear friends, A horrid assault was perpetrated against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, who had published caricatures of Mohamed, by men who screamed that they had “avenged the prophet”. A wave of compassion followed but apparently died shortly afterward and all sorts of criticism started pouring down the web against Charlie Hebdo, who was described as islamophobic, racist and even sexist. Countless other comments stated that Muslims were being ostracized and finger-pointed.

Set in a remote village in the north of Russia, Leviathan tells with tragic beauty the story of Kolya, a car mechanic, in his struggle to prevent the local mayor from expropriating and redeveloping his land.

Late in the night, 194 countries of the UN framework convention on climate change finally found an agreement. Far from satisfactory, this agreement jeopardizes any "historic agreement" in Paris. The climate justice NGOs and movements, including Attac France and the Friends of the Earth France, have released this first analysis.

The year 2015 approaches and with it a series of commemorations to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide. On November 22nd and 23rd, 2014, the Hrant Dink Foundation organised various lectures at the University of Ankara where participants discussed the closed border between the young Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey.

The Association of European Journalists in Catalonia and the Barcelona daily newspaper La Vanguardia have named Mediapart as the recipient of the inaugural Jaime Arias award for journalistic excellence, a prize that was created this year in memory of one of the leading figures in Catalan journalism.

Hello everyone!I’ve noticed in the past few months that some of my close friends have used crowd-funding campaigns to raise money for their personal projects, whether it be for a film, a play, or a tummy tuck procedure. Each campaign turned out to be a big success, so I thought, why not try one myself?